


A Fair Price

by belladeum



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: (sorta?), Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Demons, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Body Horror, Deal with a Devil, Demon Arthur, Demon England (Hetalia), Fire, GerEng Week, Horror, M/M, Mentioned Prussia (Hetalia), Spooky, humantalia, idk if this counts as gore??? it's not gory per se but if you get squeamish then maybe take care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 12:57:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21271418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belladeum/pseuds/belladeum
Summary: “Your price,” Ludwig repeated, voice stern and brows set low. He glared at the demon, at the writhing monstrosity with limbs he couldn’t describe, a mass of wriggling flesh and assortment of textures and colours that all resembled darkness in some way. Why should it answer Ludwig’s puny outcry? He resisted the urge to apologise and straightened his back, keeping his eyes square on the nightmare that saved his life.“Ah yes. Payment.” It smiled, lopsided and malefic. “You are to kill another of my choosing.”Ludwig makes a deal with a demon (AKA Arthur). Because it seemed like a good idea when he was burning to death.  || Reupload. Written for GerEng Week 2016, prompt: Steep ||





	A Fair Price

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for descriptions of burns/other injury, body horror because demon!Arthur is like that, superfluous description, and complete disregard for historical accuracy. See the end for behind-the-scenes rambles!

The tongue that dragged across his face now was unlike the flames that had licked at him earlier as he choked against the floorboard, nails scratching, muscles going into spasms and thoughts slowing as hypoxia set in. It was long, slow-moving, and set his nerves alight. His skin itched and bristled at the touch, and it felt for all the world like a rash was coming up just because of it. As far as tongues of any sort went, Ludwig would have preferred the former to this treatment. Ludwig grimaced as he squinted down at it, dizzy by trying to train his vision out of the corner of his eye, quelling bile at the sight of an abscess forming on the blacked, dripping thing, bulging ripe and splitting with a tiny pop to reveal a shallow crater in the flesh, raw and oozing, inside of which a miniature eyeball grew to stare back at him. Ludwig blanched and screwed his own eye shut as the tongue slathered across his eyelid sending pain, oh such blinding _pain_, through his skull, and then over his nose and lay at rest underneath his other eyesocket, where he didn’t feel much of anything. The skin under his chin and across his cheekbone where that black thing had swathed and wettened no longer felt pinched and dry, only a little sore. Ludwig moved a hand with intent to feel the skin, only gingerly, and it was slapped away with force. The message from the demon was clear: _wait until I’m done_.

Ludwig felt pressure on his damaged eyeball, a strange sensation, and he felt compelled to blink, but he could barely feel his left eyelid, and he didn’t doubt for a second that even if he could move it, he wouldn’t want to. He was glad he couldn’t see the bloodied, blistering mess that comprised the left side of his face. The demon licked its lips - Ludwig could tell from the wet smack of the skin, so purposefully exaggerated - and lay a kiss below his eye, and then another on his glistening, numb cheekbone. Ludwig heard the creature shift, and he allowed his head to be tilted back, feeling his hair shift against the back of his neck. Then a warm pressure, a finger that felt slick and oily slid his regrown eyelid over his left eye as a throbbing pain emerged focussed at that point. He ignored it. This was nothing, he told himself. The searing of his skin surely must have been far more painful than this - yet he could not recall exactly. Strange, it felt like such a memory would be burnt into his mind, appropriately so.

His face was tweaked, turned this way and that, and Ludwig felt more of that intense itching sensation spread like a stream down his left side, sending sharp pains through his lower jaw and the hollow of his neck. The demon made a sound like it was tutting, and rubbed his left cheek as if scrubbing away a smear of dirt on a child. Ludwig grumbled, low and annoyed, certain the demon was toying with him now.

“Are you _quite_ finished?”

There came a chuckle, the sound of gristle, stone pestle against mortar, snapping twigs and all manner of sounds, a cacophony sinister and elegant simultaneously, and the demon admonished him.

“Temper temper, child. All good things, as you say.” The demon paused. “But you may open your eyes if you wish.”

Ludwig was hesitant to do so, not wishing to look at the vile creature, and doubtful that his sight would be restored, but again, what point was there in waiting? Had he waited before, he would most certainly be dead. Charred remains with brown leathery skin. Ludwig opened his eyes with slow anticipation, heartbeat growing fast when he knew that his blinded side was no more. His vision was as clear as it had ever been, and his mouth grew dry. He blinked, looked to and fro, eye swivelling easily and his room came into view as he remembered it.

“Thank you,” he managed, voice croaking and throat dry only out of emotion. It barely even itched.

The demon smiled, and Ludwig decided that was smugness. Again it ran a stump of a finger over his cheek, no longer blotched and weeping, and popped it into its lopsided mouth.

“You’re welcome!”

That display detracted from Ludwig’s relief. Demon it may be, but it had kept its word; his body felt no hurt and seemed as it should be, able to move and feel as naturally as ever, and there was no damage to any of his possessions either. It was as if his house was untouched. The previous night never happened.

Ludwig swallowed several times, trying not to stutter with his next words. Now came the dreaded question.

“Now name your price, demon.”

“Oh come now! Such formality!” The demon’s eyes, one of blazing hellfire that burnt from a distance far exceeding the size of the demon’s skull, one larger and scabbed and sprouting some kind of fungus or lichen - Ludwig cared not what it was he only knew it was organic and growing - and the third lidless maw that bled thick and black from its violet pupil, all flickered and the latter rolled obscenely. The tiny spark of fire grew brilliant and green in colour. “I have a name you know.”

“No doubt something incomprehensible,” Ludwig muttered.

“As a matter of fact, yes. And should you speak it, nay, even attempt it incorrectly the price upon your soul would be severe. But contractions are quite harmless. I invite you to call me **☰̻͈̲̟☰͔̤̮̦̙̀̈͛ ̸H̘̫̫̥͝ͅ-̡̲ɘ͏̣̩͍Ϡ̧̧Ϡ͜͠n̼̭̬̕░͝ೱ̥̤魔҉̜∫̜̹͝ ̴̱̙Ѧ̥̰ᚱ̹̻̪̳̜͍͟Ԅ̪̩̣͓͇ᵗ̖̭̞͔͟r͓̮͖̫͎**.”

Ludwig wrinkled his nose, sulphurous fumes purging the air as the demon spoke, and coughed loudly. He wondered what the demons name would sound like in full, and imagined hearing that may just make him pass out.

“I doubt I can pronounce that. Not without growing an extra pair of lungs and more besides.” He’d have to come up with something easier. Arthur, perhaps, after that flea-ridden wild cat that killed the birds that nested on his property that Gilbert so adored. Why it had been named and treated so fondly by a young girl who lived not a stone’s throw away was a mystery to Ludwig, but the name had stuck with him nonetheless. Gilbert had joked that maybe she was a witch and that maybe since he was so charming and handsome, she would alleviate his pain if he wooed her. Ludwig had frowned at the idea, disbelieving and wary. Now he could not say he doubted witches were real.

“I’ll think of an appropriate name to call you, demon. A name I can manage.”

The demon rolled its eyes at that. Typical.

“_I_ manage without those sacs of flesh.” The demon indicated the craters and pockmarks upon, some of which appearring to spiral and form tubes into, the fluid and bristling ‘skin’ that wrapped its form as if that meant something to Ludwig. The German turned his healed nose up at it.

“Your price,” Ludwig repeated, voice stern and brows set low. He glared at the demon, at the writhing monstrosity with limbs he couldn’t describe as being of one way or another, nor resembling any one creature on the face of the continent, a mass of wriggling flesh and assortment of textures and colours that all resembled darkness in some way, and he paled at his attempts to command it. This creature couldn’t be moved by any mortal will, nor any act of nature should it not wish to move itself. Why should it answer Ludwig’s puny outcry? He resisted the urge to apologise and straightened his back, keeping his eyes square on the nightmare that saved his life. It stared back, then appeared to shrug and concede.

“Ah yes. Payment. It concerns the will of another.” The demon made to step forward - Ludwig flinched - then swivelled and slowly began perusing about the room as if it was at all interested in the trinkets Ludwig had acquired over his years. A small mound of coins waiting to be spent at the local bakery; a pendant, a metal cross that he wore at all times, obviously removed by said demon, the thought of which made Ludwig blanch; his brother’s bible; an arrowhead dug up from a dried riverbed in his youth… Truthfully there wasn’t much Ludwig owned for himself and very little of interest in his bedroom.

“You told me this already,” Ludwig said, watching the demon closely. When he had woken up, in fact, upon his bed, panicked and with that _thing_ manipulating his arms while a strange grease-like substance bubbled in a small pool on his stomach. Ludwig folded his arms across his bare chest, his skin warm and firm to the touch now, no longer painful or blistered. His nakedness did not deter him in the slightest. As if a demon should care if he were clothed. The fire removed most of it, and presumably the demon the rest along with his cross while Ludwig was unconscious for whatever amount of time. If the demon’s healing of the rest of his body was like the slathering, chattering process used to renew his eyesight, soothe his melted flesh and ease the pain of his bones and regrow hair across his skin, then clothes would just be in the way. Ludwig was glad he had been unconcious for the whole procedure, for it had been painful and annoyingly slow for his shoulder and the remains of his face alone.

“My price,” the demon hissed, and Ludwig felt the word constrict his throat and ring in his ears, sending his vision plunging into darkness and his balance crumbling, the world lurching and his breath stopped. “Your payment is a duty to me, a service.”

Ludwig’s world returned to normality. He swallowed back bile and acid, though his nose now leaked a trail of blood down his lips and clear stringy mucus. He wiped it across the back of his hand, grimacing at the smear.

“You are to kill another of my choosing. That is your payment.”

“You-” Ludwig’s world buzzed. He had feared, he had hoped, he had despaired and begged every entitity he did not believe in for a different payment, for one that did not harm another. But why should a demon answer to prayers? “You said your price was fair and just.” Murder… he could not. He _would_ not! Tears. His eyes prickled, hot, deliciously hot. He almost began sobbing just at the refreshing feeling of water down his cheeks. 

“It is fair. I relinquished the flames consuming your home. That was my promise, was it not?” The demon’s voice rang out, the room creaked and buckled and it was as if the walls itself were screaming the words. “**I will quench the fire and leave no trace of it ever coming to burn**.”

“How does-” Ludwig staggered. He fell to his knees unable to stand. “How does putting out a fire equal a tender of murder?”

It was not just. It wasn’t fair, he was just one human, but a man. Why should a demon require this of him? He stared up at the demon through the blur of his tears and saw it sneering. He expected mockery, laughter, but the voice was, in a strange way, kind.

“I saved your life, child.” The demon raised two of it arms, palms seeking the heavens. Upon one, flames sprouted, silent and yellow, the air shimmering as its dance partner; upon the other blood welled and dripped down its arms, between its frail and long fingers, and dripped silently upon the floor. Ludwig knew that blood was human. “**Recall**.”

Ludwig felt the fire again. Felt the burn of his throat and small in his nose as he awoke, not with a start, but groggily from slumber to a distant roar, to the buckling of timber and the black smoke belching from wooden drawers. He had coughed, retched and staggered out of bed, saw a figure, saw a shroud dark and imposing and heard the clanging of bells, deep bellowing voices that shrivelled his skin and - the fire. Ludwig felt the blinding pain of a blow against his forehead, metal, blood, his eyes swimming with pain from the heat, the smoke, the ringing in his skull. The air was somehow less toxic on the floor. Ludwig started, he coughed, he nearly screamed but could only manage a moan. Parched. He couldn’t feel his legs - his clothes, his bedclothes clawed at his skin. On fire. His room, his house his- You could only see heat and red and black. It hadn’t been that bad moments before. He had crawled. Somehow. Hands burning, legs gone blackened, mouth pressed tight as he dare not inhale. Ludwig remember pulling up, the wall steep, a mountain, and pulling the door handle. Skin blistering, the door flinging open, a hinge broken, perhaps? A dark void just a foot away, barring way towards his brother’s room. Gilbert - he wouldn’t even be able to get out of bed - he wouldn’t -! But Ludwig was so tired, he didn’t think he could make it. No, he certainly wouldn’t. He couldn’t think for the throb in his skull and the smoke and the noise and he couldn’t feel his legs and his palms. His vision was going. Face gone.

“_A price, fair and just, to end this charade. I offer it to you._”

Ludwig remembered those words. Every intonation, every hellish sound, every assault on his senses, the bliss of being alive and the agony of trying to live, the gentle kiss of eternity before him. He hadn’t even said “please”, to this column of darkness, this abstract void that shunned the smoke, that shunned the air until it glowed bright, blue and turning liquid to seep down a barrier an infinitely small distance away from the creature’s outline. Ludwig could remember willing this entity to exist, to be real so he could answer it, so he wasn’t merely speaking to the last figments of his dying brain. Gilbert Gilbert Gilbert Gilbert not for me just let me live!

“_Yes_,” Ludwig had whispered, the last of his tears drying on his cheeks. They felt stiff now, and his eyes sore. His arms trembled, propping him upright on his knees. He’d merely agreed to remove the fire. To save his life. And now this was his price.

“One life exchanged for another. The fire I extinguished would have killed you, and quite possibly tens of others on this little way-by. I gifted you with years that should never have been yours. Your brother - spared. His unborn scion conceived in sin swelling inside his lover will live also, its bearer and their house with not a single scorch mark. Pretty neighbours, friends and strangers, a clutch of robin-chicks, a feline - and you.” The demon had sunk down, spreading out as if its body was sagging, so it was face to face with Ludwig. Ludwig couldn’t make a word of sense out of it. He stammered, and only managed to force more tears.

“In fact, you’ll find your brother quite healthy, too. The bulbous flesh that tormented him is no more.” It smiled.

“How…?” Ludwig shook his head, spat out the word again. “How?” He didn’t even know the nature of his brother’s ailment. Nothing could be done, he had tried, and Gilbert was just wasting away and that was all there was to it.

“Quite simple. I tore open his pale and stricken body and gorged myself on it. He will be quite well when he wakes. That, may I add, I gave you for free.”

Ludwig definitely did not believe that. If the demon was fair, healing Gilbert of his silent sickness would cost _something_. Perhaps another life, another death.

Ludwig inhaled, felt the walls bend with him, contracting the space he had to breathe in, making his teeth ache dull and painful. He exhaled, and the air felt thin around him. He pictured maggots wriggling out of the demon’s flesh and dropping to the floor, sprouted legs crumpled and iridescent wings still, no longer able to fly. He had to calm himself. He’d already accepted this was real. If this was real, the demon had no reason to lie. In fact, since the price of a life was the loss of another, the demon spoke only truth and fairness - he didn’t think it could do otherwise. Where life was not fair creatures that were not living were just that. Ludwig opened his eyes, and looked up at the demon.

Up close, it did have some kind of a face. Why did it bother trying to have a human face when the rest of it was indescribably inhuman? Ignoring, with great difficulty, the three unique eyes and the uncommon, sporadically placed and present greenish eyes with slitted pupils, the lopsided mouth and grim complexion, the demon had a human face, with thick brows and strange fair hair that swayed and bristled as if it were alive in itself. Across its cheeks were scores that arched up and deepened to become, presumably, ear canals that were bordered by leathery flaps of skin, populated by sprawling blood vessels that burst and wriggled underneath. The violet eye stared at Ludwig, and he saw intelligence in it. Demon, monster, and now employer. Ludwig frowned at it.

“But if it is one life for another, as should be fair. You’ve saved countless lives tonight.” Ludwig gulped as dread welled up from his gut. “Who am I to kill, assuming it is only one person?”

The demon laughed.

“Well if you decide to think of it like that, then I am most generous am I not? I am not unkind.” The demon’s fingers clicked abhorrently in their sockets, dislocating and relocating with apparent ease. The demon smiled, wicked and gentle and full of cracked teeth jutting through his lips and splintering. One dislodged and fell to the floor becoming a scurry of mites and spiders disappearing into dust, or maybe escaping through the floorboards. “I save the lives of many, you take the life of one.”

Ludwig felt something pressed into his hand, and he wondered why he didn’t notice the demon picking up his cross pendant.

“It’s not that steep a price now is it, child?”

**Author's Note:**

> Backstory, cause IDK if I'll ever continue this. Back in 2016 I thouht I might, but it seems unlikely now:  
\- Gil had cancer and he is having an affair with Elizabeta.  
\- This probably takes place ??? years ago before proper cancer treatment was a thing, hence Gilbert just wasting away and dying for no apparent reason. I wondered about setting this in 1666 but consider this a vague historical fantasy human au.. thing…..  
\- Normally I’d make the effort to be incredibly medically (and historically) accurate regarding the cancer thing but I. wrote this in a few hours so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
\- Arthur only looks super grotesque because the flames he quenched were made using a demon’s influence, regardless if a human started the fire. He basically takes on the forms, lives, and sins of the people he’s just saved, hence the tangle of limbs and illnessess and morphing appearance and additional plant matter. The third eye is a demon thing though, since the hellfire eye allows demons to see into Hell, the empty eye allows them to exist in a mortal plane and interact with its inabitants if they chose to lose it, and the third eye is just there cause it’s cool. Once the contract is fulfilled Arthur will look like himself again. Still freaky and terrifying, but less limbs.  
\- The 'other’ Arthur wants Ludwig to kill is a demon who has murdered many humans, hence the price being fair. I doubt he has any personal vendetta against Demon #2 but IDK all I knew is that Arthur wanted this demon gone, and has been trying to get him gone for some time. Maybe he wants a promotion??? Or maybe yes angsty secret backstory regarding demon lore and how/why Arthur is a demon? WHO KNOWS CAUSE I DON’T  
\- Demons can’t kill one another, and Arthur isn’t going to try asking Angels for help, so he has to get a human to kill the other demon.  
\- Arthur is a demon under Gluttony, hence he can give excess life. Ludwig is actually kind of invincible now, at least until he kills the demon. So he better do that unless he wants to outlive everyone he cares for and suffer the pain of immortality. If I do more of this au i may scrap this plot point tho.  
\- Oh yeah Arthur and Ludwig definitely fall in love after Ludwig kills the demon. Heck maybe even before.


End file.
